Frank Miller (born 1957) is a comic book writer and artist, most famous for helping to popularize Batman's return to his dark and gritty roots. He specializes in gritty, over-the-top noir, and usually draws in an immediately recognizable style - replete with stark black-and-whites and often no color at all. Most of his work is narrated in first-person, usually by a macho Sociopathic Hero. Pretty much all of his work is incredibly violent and bloody, sometimes to the point of Refuge in Audacity. Could be described as the "Patron Saint of Badass." His heroes will be brutalized to the point of Heroic BSOD, but they will also ultimately prove that a single Righteous Badass is superior (or at least equal) to any number of evil mooks.

Miller has been the center of controversy and the hatred of a very vocal sector of the Internet population, mostly due to his perceived over-representation of prostitutes, sadistic violence (seen as violence for the sake of it), and his libertarian and hawkish political views, although many people alternatively like his works for exactly those reasons. Hence the fan conflicts. For instance, many people think his portrayal of prostitutes and female heroes implies a form of misogyny; however, fans will point out that not only are said prostitutes portrayed as sympathetic and strongly independent characters, but that two of Frank's most famous creations are Elektra and Martha Washington.

He has won multiple Eisner, Kirby and Harvey Awards, as well as a nomination for the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Sin City.

Daredevil- Whatever Frank Miller did for Batman, he did twice over for Daredevil, or so the saying (roughly) goes. Introduced nearly all of the major elements we associate with the character today, apart from the costume, the blindness and Bullseye, though the latter got some defining moments under his run too. In his run, Miller created Elektra and The Hand, added Spider-Man nemesis Kingpin as a new Arch-Enemy, made Catholicism a fundamental part of the character of Matt Murdock, added a bigger focus on martial arts in the combat and brought a noir sensibility to the storytelling that's stayed with the series ever since. See Daredevil: Born Again for the magnum opus of the run.

Spider-Man - Handled the art in two annuals of Amazing as well as a multi-part storyline in Spectacular Spider-Man in which a temporarily blinded Spider-Man teams up with Daredevil. This wound up being Miller's first work on the Man Without Fear.

Frank Miller is also known for writing RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 (though is at pains to point out both suffered from extensive Executive Meddling). He also co-directed and wrote the film adaptation of Sin City. And he's directed a movie adaptation of The Spirit, which it may or may not have turned out well, depending on who you ask and whether or not they're fans of the Spirit's comics and Frank (The comics are actually very over-the-top like the movie, though Frank did add some of his signature grittiness).

He's recently indicated he'd like to go against type and tackle Captain America, exploring Cap's idealism contrasted with the dark post-9/11 world. Considering how his previous major use of the character (Daredevil: Born Again, ironically enough) had Miller write some of Cap's most memorable moments (and lines, such as the immortal "I'm loyal to nothing, General...except the Dream.")...that might not be too bad of an idea. Then again, given how his most recent works have turned out, and he point blankly stated that his idea of Cap being a patriot is for him to beat up some Muslim terrorists, maybe it would be better if he didn't get his hands on Cap again. You never know....:

Not to be confused with fellow comic book author Mark Millar, or with the crook that tries to kill Will Kane in High Noon (incidentally one of Miller's favourite films).

Frank Miller's works contain examples of:

Art Evolution: Went from drawing in a somewhat generic way, to take more and more on to an original style. From Sin City onwards, his style would contain mostly large shadows and blocky figures, with a lot of large splash pages. His art has evolved, as now he's mostly known for large black and white ink brushes in his art. Mostly consider his art has become better, original and memorable. Others just find it plain horrible.

Ascended Meme: The use of the word "goddamn" has seen a significant increase in his work since he gave us the Goddamn Batman.

Frank Miller seems to be a big fan of prostitutes, casting them in a few of his works. However, they are usually portrayed as sympathetic characters, albeit often homicidal and mentally unstable - not uncommon traits in Miller's heroes.

And most recently, Patriotism. He credits the anniversary of 9-11 for creating his desire to write Holy Terror.

He is a big fan of crime stories, particularly the Film Noir genre. These elements can be found in all of his work.

He is also a Japanophile. His Daredevil and Wolverine runs are responsible for adding the ninja-elements to these characters. Meanwhile, Ronin and Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot were huge homages to Japanese pop culture. Then there is Miho from Sin City.

Badass Boast: "It was up to my generation to basically give Batman his balls back."

Doing It for the Art: Even though he could've continued to work with Marvel and DC and gotten huge paychecks form them, he decided to go to lesser-known publishers so he could do some creator owned work with less pay.

Hollywood Atheist: Averted, actually. Despite being himself an atheist, he has been noted as generally writing all faiths, or lack thereof, with as much respect as anything else. Some religious heroes (Daredevil), some villains (Sin City). Daredevil is notable since Miller was the first writer to portray him as overtly Catholic, and made it a major part of his character.

I Die Free: That's pretty much the Aesop of most of his independent work, particularly Bad Boy.

Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: Very much on the Romantic side. His works glorify individual will, initiative and the greatness of unique events and acts over that of collective and larger scale historical and social forces.

Self Plagiarism: In his story-arc Daredevil: Born Again, one of the Kingpin's lieutenants speaks with an excessive amount of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, which is played for laughs. He would later use the same type of gag when writing Shlubb and Klump (a.k.a. Fat Man and Little Boy) from Sin City.

This may be a case of actual plagiarism, as there was an incredibly similar character in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. Much like Miller's character, he was a criminal with Delusions of Eloquence. Miller has, on more than one occasion, cited Hammett as an influence.

He ripped some of Batman's internal monologue from ASB&R #5 from the first part of Dark Knight Returns. Similarly he ripped dialogue from the last page of Born Again for use in his Spirit movie ('It was a nice piece of work, Kingpin/Saref. You shouldn't have signed it').

The final version of Holy Terror still reads like it was part of the Dark Knight-verse.

Shout-Out: We know he likes Taxi Driver because there are tons of subtle references to the movie in his work, from stuff like All-Star Batman and Robin to Elektra: Assassin and The Dark Knight Returns

The basic premise of Batman: Year One, from Gordon's side at least, is that of Serpico, one honest cop trying to do good in a system full of corrupt cops. In fact, one might call it Serpico with Batman.

Sin City contains numerous shout outs and even an expy or two to pulp fiction and crime-noir stories.

Take That: Some have speculated that All Star Batman and Robin is a big insult to the people who complained that the Dark Knight Batman was too crazy, as perhaps evidenced by the line "You want nuts?! I'll show you nuts!" A close variant of this line occurs in Tim Burton's Batman movie.

Frank also seems to have little, if any, respect for Superman.

Dark Knight Returns was a fairly respectful Superman treatment. Took the view of "Superman is a good guy, but won't step outside the law / civilian authority structures like Batman will". Which isn't too unfair. Then Superman breaks his Thou Shall Not Kill rule to kill dirty communists, nearly gets killed by a nuke *even though he's been surviving nukes since 1947, and basically turning Superman into an energy vampire...

Verbal Tic: Frank Miller loves his THROWBACKS to pulp DIALOGUE where people emphasize certain WORDS to make it sound IMPORTANT usually expressed in his characters' INNERMOST THOUGHTS along with REPETITION. Along with repetition.

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